coming out of the closet

First I read the report about the lack of WMDs in Iraq. I thought, "Maybe now we can admit that we were wrong about the WMDs and potentially gain some respect back from the rest of the world, let alone our own citizens that wonder why we keep sending National Guard units over." But, true to usual form, we instead tell the world that, in fact, the original justification for war wasn't REALLY the justification. The REAL justification was something much more "humanitarian"--to get rid of a bad man. Unfortunately, that was not the justification that Congress and the American people were given to justify our desperate need to go to war when we did. To quote the USA Today article: "'In short, we invaded a country, thousands of people have died, and Iraq never posed a grave or growing danger,' said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va." I can't figure it out. I'm sure that Bush is not a bad person. I'm sure that he really wants to right all of the wrongs that our country has fallen into morally. I believe that he is a Christian in the sense of someone that has been "born again." And that he believes he is telling the truth. I disagree with Michael Moore that everything that comes out of Bush's mouth is a deliberate deception. But the only reason I now have to believe that--that he is good and a Christian and has everyone's best interest in mind--is the word of Bush and Cheney and the other members of the administration. And we now know that, even if it wasn't a boldfaced lie, that there was a tacit assumption after 9/11/01 that one way or another the US was going to topple Iraq and install a government that was more to our liking if not our explicit control. This is nation-building through aggressive military action (versus diplomacy, sanctions, defensive military action, etc.). This blatant manipulation of facts to fit a preconceived cause may not be a lie, but it's darn close. So if I can no longer believe our President when he gives (or one of his spokespersons give) reasons for going to war--one of the most potentially catastrophic acts a President can unleash--how can I believe him when he proclaims to share a version of my faith? Many Christians I know are still in support of Bush because of his anti-abortion stance, his anti-stem cell research stance, his plans to trim the fat from public assistance programs, lower taxes, explore Mars, African debt relief promises, and his ability to "make us safe from terrorists." I have been persuaded by those issues for a while now and would not come out in support of Kerry for that reason. But now that we're within one month of the election, I feel like I have to take a stand one way or another. This doesn't mean that I have to vote for one candidate or another--I don't feel like national-level politics are the primary concern of the Christian. I simply can no longer stomach Christians who conflate conservative nationalism and their faith by elevating every promise, press release, address, retort, or one-liner of our President as some sort of unquestionable truth. Let's look at the current state of our government: the President is conservative, his advisors are conservative, the Senate and House of Representatives are Republican (albeit by a narrow margin), and the US Supreme Court is 5 to 4 Republican-appointed, conservative senior citizens. If Roe v. Wade was going to be overturned, or the Marriage Amendment proposed, the last two years were the best time for that to happen in decades. If federal legislation making the nation a more moral place through prayer in schools, censorship on movies or TV shows, etc., the past two to four years were the best political environment in which to do so. We have to face facts: the overwhelming agenda for the present Congress and Presidential Administration has been an economic, not a moral one: how to release federal constraints on corporations and the wealthiest 2% of the population while at the same time expecting better results with less funding for "irresponsible" and/or mismanaged schools, welfare agencies, small farms, hospitals, public/state universities, and single mothers. The United States is not going to improve morally with Bush and a conservative Congress, and Supreme Court at the helm. Yes, we may have lower taxes, but our jobs are going to be outsourced to countries where labor is cheaper and therefore companies' costs are lower--not so that savings is passed on to the consumer in a Reaganomics sort of way--but so that those who already have can have more. Yes we may have a larger standing army, but those troops are going to have less to come back to in their small towns and inner cities across the country when they are done serving--and they won't make us more "secure" from terror within our own borders while they are on the other side of the globe. Yes we are going to have more tests for schools but they will be instated to the detriment of the teachers and students that have no option but to "teach/learn to the test." And--if you haven't figured it out before--a political platform that prides itself on "states's rights" the way that the Republicans do will not, despite their talk, put together a bill or Constitutional Amendment that will define marriage from a federal legal standpoint. Similarly, an administration that has the best interests of companies, especially multi-national conglomerates, in mind will not "drop the debt" in Africa in any effective way (the US only has Congressional approval on $500 million in debt-relief anyway--not the whole amount asked of the US). In other words, my Christian brothers and sisters, if you're looking to this President and this Congress and this Supreme Court to improve our country morally, you're looking in the wrong place. If you're looking to make our country more compassionate toward those who don't have the huge material blessings we've been blessed with, you're not going to get that either. If, however, you're hoping to have lower gasoline prices instead of more fuel-efficient cars, more tests instead of better educated kids, more "security" instead of a greater degree of civil rights, more consumer goods produced at a lower cost to the manufacturer instead of more unionized blue and white collar labor inside of the US, more moralizing about homosexuality without equal conviction over our idolic materialism, more assurances of good intentions without the actual impact of those good intentions, and more rhetoric about how we don't need justification for our actions from the world community while we still send our own soldiers out into that now much more hostile or at least unsympathetic world to get shot at and killed for reasons that turn out to be misinformed at best, outright lies at worst--then by all means, continue to vote Republican. I don't want to fight, but can someone convince me to (a) Vote and (b) Vote for Bush? I want to be persuaded so, by all means, persuade.... [We need a real third party. Jeff, will you run?]